The present invention relates generally to the automated generation of electronic documents and more specifically to the insertion and formatting of address data into the documents.
In customer resource management systems, it is typical to have customers with addresses in many different countries. Each of these countries has its own addressing guidelines relating to the formatting of the address information, as read and processed by the different postal departments. Therefore, the formatting of the address information on these electronic documents needs to be adjusted for the different countries.
In existing systems, address information is inserted into electronic templates having data field locations defined by postal guidelines. For example, if a document is created with an addressee in the United States, the recipient's name may be in the first line, the company name in the second line, third line is a street address and the fourth line is the city, state and zip. This would be consistent with the Post Office guidelines so the document may be properly delivered.
When a large number of documents are generated, such as in a mass mailing, the process is repeated for each document. Based on the defined postal guidelines, the address information for the different recipients is automatically formatted and inserted into the documents. When the recipients are in different countries, different templates or guidelines must be used to adjust the address information.
When a large project is executed, the documents that are generated therefore do not have uniform address fields when the addresses are to different countries with varying format requirements. Rather, these fields vary significantly based on the jurisdictional postal requirements. With the continued growth of electronic communication, the postal address is not as necessary. Fewer documents are being physically mailed and do not require the proper postal address. Rather, these documents are being transmitted via electronic means.
Even though these documents may be transmitted by electronic means, in a business environment it is proper to include the full formal address anyway. In a business scenario therefore, generated documents may not have a uniform design due to varying address formats. Currently it is problematic to generate multiple documents directed to various users at different locations where the documents have a standardized addressing format because of the addressing protocols that govern the document creation.
In existing database applications that electronically generate multiple documents having address fields for different customers in different countries, the address is formatted according to the postal guidelines. Existing systems do not allow for the electronic generation of multiple documents inserting address information from customer information databases in user-defined formatting that would be contrary to the postal format guidelines.